


Sole Survivor

by sian1359



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Fanart, Introspection, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Photoshop, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-18
Updated: 2007-06-18
Packaged: 2018-02-05 04:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1804567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan on Tantooine</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sole Survivor

**Author's Note:**

> another old fic
> 
> First published in 2007 Constricted By Plot Zine
> 
> The lyrics within are used (and very slightly modified) without permission. Both songs written by Clannad

[](http://s926.photobucket.com/user/sian1359/media/covers%20and%20frontispieces/image031.jpg.html)

 

*********

_Feel the sadness inside; I'm scarlet inside_

Tatooine. Whether it will prove prison or refuge, exile or burial ground, I would never have thought I'd end up here on the one planet that held more pain for me even than Naboo, but then I have never so much been one to believe in the Will of the Force as the inevitable relentlessness of it.

THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT THE BOY.

Yes, there was. There is. Funny how we could both be right about the same thing with such differing intent and to such horrific consequences.

THEY ALL SENSE HE'S DANGEROUS, WHY DON'T YOU?

Was your blindness because Anakin was the one future no Jedi can ever look to see, that which holds their death?

For surely he was, even though the Sith was the instrument. Deadly dangerous to you, who never before had use for looking to the future. Yet you went into that battle with only the future on your mind. Concerned with prophecies and my knighthood, with the damage to our relationship and yours with the Council. And so the moment eluded us both.  
  
  
 _Slowly, I look around, an angry sight for every sound. We stood with troubles all around; all is trampled on the ground._

 

It's easy to imagine your touch in the wind that is rising, to feel the sorrow of all who have fallen in the first drops of rain this planet has known in more than a hand span of seasons. And I can hear your voice in the concern of Beru's, in the gruffness of Owen's, and in the laughter of young Luke's. Luke knows only the joy of the moment, in experiencing the wonders and finding the delights of his new home. In many ways he has already shown to be your twin in his connection to the Living Force and I can feel only gladness.

Yet I fear he is also _my_ legacy, will be a dreamer and have that ever-present ache that comes from knowing and needing to be a part of the future. It should have been Amidala, of course, or Anakin instead of me that was his first connection with another. But Anakin would have destroyed him and, despite the pain it caused her, I think even Amidala knew in the end that she could offer neither child the home or love they deserved as Anakin held them both tightly in his gloved and lifeless fist.

The rain is falling harder now. Or maybe it is just my own tears that I make no move to wipe away. One last thing you taught me, that I could cry, although not in time to have shared my pain with the boy Anakin had been. Or to properly mourn my friends and my compatriots, my mentors. Nor my doomed apprentice.

I have not cried since that last moment when you raised your hand when you could not raise your voice. But those words were in both of our hearts, along with the sorrow and the regret, and I know now that a lifetime can take place in the time it takes one tear to fall and be brushed away.  
  


_I realized far too late, as all life dissipates, No truth, no reasons why, just the fear, and the hatred._

 

I walk into the storm. I walk, leaving behind my future, one that I know will not hold me long despite all the hope he represents. I walk, while in my hands I begin to let go of my past.

As I let loose the first braid -- my own -- a small part of me wonders if Jango Fett had been advised by Dooku to make a trophy of them, or if the bounty hunter had recognized on his own the meaning those thin plaits held for us, and the extra sorrow he would cause by so callously collecting them. But I release that hurt into the wind and the Force, even as I also release my long-held pain that it had been Yoda's hand that had removed my braid at my knighting instead of yours. That I was the one it was given to instead of you.

Anakin and Amidala's braids come out next, one in each hand. His had been tossed at my feet in an expression of his contempt, and kept by me as a brand of my guilt and arrogance. Amidala's had been no less desperately hacked off scant months later, though not in denial of who she was so much as to protect that. I had taken one with me as a talisman to remember her strength and resolve.

Now I lift them both to the storm in honor of the love they held for one another even at the end, and for the love I still hold for them both. Yet I release them to twine and drift together with the wish, perhaps only foolishly made, that by returning Anakin to the last place he had truly been at peace for all that he had been a slave, he might one day find peace -- and her -- again.

I hold yours last, taken in those timeless moments before Naboo intruded again, long hidden from the healers and the Council, nestled next to my heart and touched each evening before I drift to sleep so thoughts of you stay forever in my mind. Releasing yours is hard despite sensing you in every sunrise and child's smile.

I should, I know, should have let it go years passed. But I couldn't and I cannot. And then the choice is taken from me in a gust that would also steal my breath. Or is it fill it?

I snatch the braid back and clutch it tightly. But the wind, the Force -- you -- are right. And so I open my hand and, at last, my heart.

I walk into the storm. I walk, going to a place that will ever be but a moment's shelter. For the only home I have had or will ever know, was, is, and will forever be with you, my Master.

 

_\-- Finis --_

  
_Hope is my survival, a captive path I lead_  
No matter where you go I will find you, in the place with no frontiers  
No matter where you go I will find you, if it takes a thousand years  
No matter where you go, I will find you. 


End file.
